The Becoming (Book 4): Under Siege Read Free Page B

then.
    At least, not until now. As she slouched at
the dining table with the stacks of supplies in front of her, Remy
felt tears pricking at the insides of her closed eyelids. She bit
down hard on her bottom lip and pressed the heel of her hand
against one of her eyes until she saw stars in the blackness. As
she drew in a ragged breath, the sound of combat boots against
floorboards met her ears. She darted out of her chair, nearly
knocking it over in the process, and wiped hastily at her eyes.
Then she snatched up her notepad and looked around wildly for her
pen. The memory of her pitching it across the room in a fit of
anger flashed before her mind’s eye. She swore again as Dominic
Jackson stepped into the dining room.
    “Nice to see you too, Remy,” Dominic
greeted. Remy didn’t bother to look at him. Instead, she focused on
her notepad, even as she tried to discreetly shake her hair down to
cover her face. She wasn’t going to lie—she was still
self-conscious about the scars that marred her skin. Even if
Dominic had seen them before, she still didn’t want to flash them
around more than necessary. “You busy?” Dominic asked.
    “Actually, yes,” Remy muttered. She patted
at her pockets in a vain search for another pen and kept her eyes
focused on the food in front of her. On anywhere but the man
who’d just entered the room. “I’m supposed to be inventorying the
new food supplies for Cade.”
    Dominic crossed the floor, his footsteps
thumping audibly in time with her heartbeat, and he stopped behind
her, leaning over her shoulder to peer down at her notepad.
“Doesn’t look like you’re making much progress there,” he
commented. His breath was hot against her ear, his mouth mere
centimeters from her skin.
    Remy grimaced and slammed the notepad face
down on top of the soup cans, even as she fought off the shiver of
attraction that threatened to run down her spine. She faced Dominic
and found herself standing uncomfortably close to him, so close
that she could feel the warmth of his body against hers, so close
that she was pinned between him and the dining table. She fought
back the surge of terror and anxiety—maybe even a little
intrigue—that welled up inside her and made her nauseous. She hated how he made her feel. She hated that, even if she
dared assess whether he felt the same way, it would never happen
between them. Ever. All she could do was push him away.
    She fumbled behind her for the edge of the
dining table, gripping it both for reassurance and support, and
asked pointedly, “Is there a reason you’re in here pestering
me?”
    “What, I can’t pester you just to pester
you?” Dominic asked. There was a lilting tone to his voice, as if
he were teasing her. He reached up and lightly twisted a lock of
her dark hair in his fingers, tugging on it before letting it go.
Remy raised an eyebrow and fought at the quirk that threatened the
corner of her mouth. The man had zero reason to like her or to talk
to her, especially considering the healed bullet wound in his
shoulder—the one that she had put there. The thought of it
almost brought a full-on smile to her face. She squelched it before
it could make itself known.
    “Why in the hell would you want to pester me ?” Remy asked. She managed to cross her arms over her
chest in the narrow space between them, her forearms pressing
against the strong muscles underneath Dominic’s thin t-shirt, and
she successfully pulled off the look of annoyance that she’d
intended to give him.
    Dominic didn’t respond to her question.
Instead, his dark eyes flickered over her face, as if every unhappy
thought she’d ever had was laser-etched into her cheekbones. He
opened his mouth, a gentle look on his face, like he was preparing
to ask her something personal. But then he closed it again and
shook his head before asking, “Have you seen Cade or Brandt? Or,
preferably, both of them?”
    Remy couldn’t deny the twinge of
disappointment she felt,